Having explored some of the general competencies that enable a physician to be successful in leading a healthcare organization, we are now ready to look in a more detailed manner at specific competencies that can be engaged when addressing specific healthcare organization needs and when serving in specific leadership roles. I will turn once again to the wisdom offered by Mindi McKenna and Perry Pugno (2006). However, as I noted in the previous essay on competencies in this series, I will also be introducing insights offered by Jeannine Sandstrom—the co-author of a model called Legacy Leadership. While the Leadership Spectrum model we introduced in the first set of essays regarding physician leadership concerned style, Legacy Leadership is primarily concerned with the competencies and attitudes being engaged by those who lead organizations.
In this essay, I bring together the work of Jeannine Sandstrom with that of McKenna and Pugno by focusing on the five best leadership practices identified by Sandstrom and showing how McKenna and Pugno, as well as Sandstrom, offer insights that can benefit the work done by physician leaders in mid-21st Century healthcare organizations. Before moving to a consideration of each leadership practice, I offer a brief overview of the Legacy Leadership Model that Dr. Sandstrom produced with her colleague, Dr. Lee Smith (Sandstrom and Smith,2017)
The Legacy Leadership™ Model
Sandstrom and Smith based their model of leadership on their work over many years with business leaders in all sectors of American society. Having observed the most common behaviors of successful leaders, they identified five Best Practices that set outstanding leaders apart from their peers. When they listened to the deepest issues that were on leaders’ minds, they identified something they called “legacy”. Their legacy program was developed as a map for ensuring excellence in leadership practices that would enable leaders to leave the legacy they intend.
Sandstrom and Smith proposed that leaders need a comprehensive and systemic model that meets their need for guidance regarding the work they do throughout their careers. Building on the assumption that leaders serve others first, then themselves. Sandstrom and Smith offered a vision of Legacy Leaders as holders of vision and values, creators of trust so that innovation and creativity can occur, influencers of inspiration and leadership, advocates for differences and community, and finally, calibrators of responsibility and accountability.
